>I could see how that could take the fun out of the style of his story.
I completely agree. I think it was the right decision as well. You bond with the characters immediately (and start laughing at their jokes shortly after) - I think we would've lost that if they were all talking in a faux-authentic way. It just made the whole thing more fun! (I did do a double-take when Dug referred to something as 'problematic', but that then made me laugh as well.)
(Good review, by the way! - Here it is for anyone else that might wander along - http://www.tenaciousreader.com/2014/09/02/age-of-iron-by-angus-watson/)

I'm reading and reviewing all ten finalists for the David Gemmell Legend Awards. You can follow along here. Voting has closed, but the winners aren't announced until August, so I'm plowing on... Age of Iron (2014) is a gory, goofy, visceral romp. It combines a historical setting with shameles...

Yes! Finding SMH on Sequential was pretty amazing - I'm now moseying back and picking up some of the older titles and adaptations.
The thing that's sitting there, staring at me, is Love & Rockets. I've never read it and, boy, it is... there. Waiting for me. Waiting.

In one of the least-difficult challenges we've ever been issued, the One Comic team were tasked with recommending ten titles from Sequential's summer sale. Our selections from the app's wide range of indie comics are all below, but there are more to choose from... The only hard part was narrow...

My knowledge of Westerns in the US is pretty hazy - but when I was working in a Barnes & Noble as a teen, the Western section was about two (hidden) shelves, and entirely Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey.
I've not read more than, like, two L'Amour novels. And they were pretty... traditional. That said, maybe he had, like, an Ed McBain thing going on, where his books shifted over time to reflect the trends in the genre? Or something? What do you think?

The Western isn’t dead. It just has a problem with logistics. Go into your local bookshop and look for the Western section. Chances are, there isn’t one. So where do Westerns end up? Sometimes they sit confusedly with Science Fiction or Fantasy. Sometimes, they’re lumped in with Crime. Often, ...

Ok, so one thing that always amazes me about the Western is how it has evolved genre.
But this is a genre that started as sort of... contemporary adventure fiction. Went through a revisionist phase. Then went back to traditional (Old Man). Then went revisionist again (say, Edge) and then post-revisionist (say, I dunno, Nunslinger). And, at the same time, diffused throughout every other genre - as Stark notes, Western themes and tropes all got picked up by everything from lit-fic to romance to SF to fantasy to horror to... whatever. That's just such a complicated evolution for a genre. By the time Tolkien was writing LotR, the Western was already about sixteen steps into its life cycle. I think that's amazing. I feel we should study the Western because it is a type of commercial genre fiction that, like the romance, is old and we should be able to learn from its changes. It is something that started a genre, became an aesthetic style and currently exists as a theme. Or something like that. Kind of amazing.
(Plus, the Western as an object became a thing at some point - I mean, if you see someone reading a Western in a book or a film, you immediately know that character, the good and the bad. For a genre that barely exists as a 'pure' genre, it has immense cultural presence.)

The Western isn’t dead. It just has a problem with logistics. Go into your local bookshop and look for the Western section. Chances are, there isn’t one. So where do Westerns end up? Sometimes they sit confusedly with Science Fiction or Fantasy. Sometimes, they’re lumped in with Crime. Often, ...

The Western isn’t dead. It just has a problem with logistics. Go into your local bookshop and look for the Western section. Chances are, there isn’t one. So where do Westerns end up? Sometimes they sit confusedly with Science Fiction or Fantasy. Sometimes, they’re lumped in with Crime. Often, ...

The Emperor's Blades is built on the long-standing traditions of the fantasy genre. This is what makes it so much fun and so incredibly successful. It tells us a story that we already know and love. And it does so excellently. Continue reading

They already got a shout out a few months ago - http://www.pornokitsch.com/2015/04/friday-five-5-epic-fantasy-comics.html
I'm afraid Rat Queens has the unfortunate problem of being not Red Sonja. A good title that has the misfortunate of existing alongside a brilliant one.

As Jon noted in an earlier post, the One Comic crew really enjoyed taking the piss out of the ludicrous Comixology blurb for Alan Moore's Providence #1. A very good comic, definitely. "A breathtaking masterpiece of sequential art"? That's a very tall order. (Here's our review, by the way. Our v...

I'm with you both - Half the World was rather spectacular and definitely more... YA-y and grimdark-y both. I also think Half the World is really good YA - it is issues-driven, has a pair of really strong characters, and uncompromising in all the right ways.
I wonder what would happen if someone read the books in reverse order - Half a King being the 'prequel' to Half the World. And if that would change their perception...
I'm very excited about Half a War. I can't wait to read it.

I'm reviewing all ten of the finalists for this year's David Gemmell Legend Awards. You can see the list and my approach here, and vote in the Awards here. Half a King (2014) is the first entry in a new series from Joe Abercrombie, one of the most well-established modern fantasy authors. It is...

Hi Janine!
Yes it is!
Staying open indefinitely... I've also added a submissions link to the footer here for all the stuff we're looking for (stories and otherwise):
http://www.pornokitsch.com/submissions.html

We're looking for short stories to publish on Pornokitsch. What we want Contemporary, relevant fiction that's fun to read! We like technology and pop music and superheroes and fairytales and apocalypses and dinosaurs and the Gothic and zombies and fairy tales and the Blues and high school and...